


those who favor fire

by werpiper



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8895271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: Fire in the Fell Winter.(Prequel fanfic to Thorinsmut's fine, fine work.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thorinsmut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Human, the Ice King, and the Stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216082) by [Thorinsmut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut). 



Heat is like hunger. Nori ran over ice and snow, the only thing moving in the frozen world, and the air blurred and shivered in his wake. When night fell, he burned bare branches for his supper. The clear spark of stars spoke through his dreams. When the cold sun rose he ran on.

He'd met the Minotaur only once, at a midsummer-night's revel. He wore full armor and danced like fighting, heavy horns slicing the air as the ground gave way beneath his stamping hooves. He moved in circles around the Centaur King, who reared and spun -- Thorin was frightened and Nori could see it, though the flutes and drums sounded only for joy; there was far more between them than that. The music peaked and the dancers fell together, inevitable as predator and prey. If what followed was love or violence, Nori could not have claimed to distinguish -- but it burned him to see, though fire was Nori's own substance; he felt it sharp as pain. He stayed all night entranced, watching them and listening, ignoring the music and everyone else. When they slept in the grey cool before dawn, Nori dozed off as well, and woke damp and uncomfortable on the dewy ground. His brother Dori introduced them over breakfast -- Dwalin the King's guard, son of Fundin, son of Nori didn't even want to know. His face was probably as red as his hair, and he couldn't meet Dwalin's deep eyes or Thorin's bright ones. He said something that was probably witty enough, and left soon after, and tried to forget about Narnia's court of noble folk and their holidays. He was an efreet, a force of nature and subject to no king. His body was his own and needed no other's passion to set him alight.

But hoofbeats hammered through Nori's dreams, in nights after. A dark wild mane fell into his face, blinding him, and a deep voice bellowing Nori's name. He did not return, but he did not forget.

When the Fell Winter came, Nori fled like anyone who could. Fire has no love for ice, and many people needed Nori's warmth and strength. His touch brought blood flowing into frozen fingers and eased joints made stiff by cold; his nature was that of a healer, of resistance to this curse. The creatures of Narnia worked together, helping each other to keep moving, stay awake, survive and make for better days. Spring did not come, but fire served the purpose. Nori had honor and much hard labor. Nobody was prepared for unending cold and snow, never flowers, nor fruit, nor any softening of the land. But they pushed on through hardship as best they could, and sometimes even tried to consider hope.

The elementals met in their families, fretting over the folk of more fragile flesh. One day at Dori's, another Minotaur came to the table, this one silver-haired with long hands like black leather gloves. Dori introduced him as Balin son of Fundin ("-- brother of Dwalin, Nori, you remember him?" as Nori nodded, numb), and a prophet who read the cold night stars.

The prophecies were rhymes, but otherwise there seemed little enough to them, to Nori. But they did lend some structure to hope, a scaffold of words to reach through impossibilities, to other worlds (where spring might still happen, or even summer, even hot midsummer nights). They had mastered survival, was what the prophecies told Nori, but someday (some long, unending, icy winter night) that would not be enough. The people of Narnia would have to create anew, to create change.

Which was enough to send Nori running back through winter, to the frozen sea, the dead castle at Cair Paravel. To feel the cold land fighting him every step of the way, though he went with a dancer's determination, listening for a music he wished he could properly remember. Because he had wished, once -- wished to dance on a holiday night, to pull someone else's partner into his own arms, to take steps he had never, truly, even tried. Nori had wanted Dwalin, and wanted him still. Prophecy might have been enough to give him courage, or perhaps it was only an excuse. He had waited long, and this was something Nori could do that was new. Something, at least, that he could try to change.

Nori found the Minotaur on the castle wall at midnight. Dwalin must have seen him -- there was no hiding a fire's light that moved -- but he raised no alarm nor any weapon. He was silent and still, eyes like ice-chips and frost through his mane, unmoving as if he had never danced.

Nori froze himself. He was paralyzed by the curse and the cold, and by Dwalin's presence, his dreams in the harsh reality of someone else's flesh. What Nori wanted to say was _I'm here to save you_ , or possibly _You should love me_. He heard his words crackling through the brittle air: "You have to leave. It's too cold here." His voice was (as always) too high and thin, embarrassing. Nori lifted his chin and turned away, pride or tears burning inside his eyes.

The silence was too long. Then there was a sound, deep and harsh, like ice breaking over a moving river. "Aye," said Dwalin, "aye," slow and full of pain. There was another silence, even longer, before words: "Can you help?"

Fire leapt in Nori's heart, and he would burn all of earth and heaven if that was what it took. He looked Dwalin in the eye and reached to touch his hand, and answered, "Aye. Yes, I'll help you. Come with me, come on now. Let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

No ice or snow or shredding wind was as cold as Dwalin's skin. Nori flinched when they touched. But Dwalin's grip was strong, and the Minotaur unfolded himself from sitting to stand massive as a tree and creaking like frozen branches. Then he stilled again. Salt and ice formed a rime across his chest and brow -- the sweat of effort; his breath came loud and hard as the bull he resembled, wreathing his face like steam.

"Come _on_ ," said Nori again, but Dwalin did not stir. The dancer was still as a stone. Only his ice-chip eyes moved, strange and sparkling, looking down over Nori, then fixing on the ground.

"I can't." Dwalin's whisper was deep as the snow, soft as the snowfall. "Can't leave him. Can't move."

"Of course you can," said Nori, which might have been wishful thinking, except that Dwalin just _had_ moved. He towered over Nori now. He smelled like a wind off the frozen sea, but there was a musky animal note underneath that Nori had not known he remembered. "You can," he said again. "I can help." And just like that he put his body against the minotaur's, pushed out his heat as he had done a hundred times to heal.

His heart hammered. How had he forgotten his own hunger, his own flame? Nori burned himself, giddy and sick, when Dwalin cried out softly as they touched. It was wrong to see a stranger so. Dwalin was no dream-lover, drawn by the mind to suit itself. His loyalty, perhaps his love and certainly his service, belonged to Thorin King; Nori was nothing but a spy upon a centaur's ceremony. Dwalin stiffly sank to his knees, pressed his forehead to Nori's belly, whispering "Please...." and Nori could have died of shameful lust. The minotaur's horns flared out wider than Nori's hips; his blunt snout pushed Nori's thighs apart; his low voice rumbled again, "please?" and Nori could come quick. He could pretend his shudder was shivering. The ice hurt him too. "Yes," murmured the minotaur, "please, more, it hurts, more, please...?"

"You're being so brave," Nori gasped. His heart gave, and broke. Flames licked around them; snow melted away to stone. "So beautiful," he babbled, "so _big_ ," as great muscular arms embraced him, clung around his waist, hands holding half his arse. "Dwalin?"

The minotaur was slow to stand, carrying Nori up like a child. "Aye," he answered. He held Nori to his chest, and Nori heard Dwalin's heartbeat like a drum. Dwalin took a hesitant step first, then a larger one; then he raced down the castle stairs like cavalry into battle. 

Nori gasped and clutched black fur as the cold wind bit his face. But he was held like the spark inside an engine while Dwalin ran and ran, steady as a powerful machine. He pushed through snowdrifts taller than Nori himself, and his hooves rang dully on thick ice. The sky was dark when he slowed, but the air perhaps a little warmer. Nori turned his face to look over Dwalin's shoulder. They were in a forest of leafless trees, and Dwalin stopped in the hollow where a vast trunk had fallen; the ground was nearly bare beside it. The minotaur leaned heavily against it, panting, and Nori slipped down as the great arms loosened. It felt strange and sad to be untouched alone in the air, but Nori made himself turn away. He gathered dead branches and laid a fire while Dwalin huddled into himself, horned head low. Nori boiled beans and brewed tea while the soldier sat silent. "Hey," he said, having spiced both hot, "you should eat. Drink and eat."

Dwalin was slow as a dreamer to respond. He took the mug and spoon in oversized hands, and Nori found he was holding his breath until Dwalin swallowed. "I thank you," he rumbled, and Nori flushed.

"Couldn't just leave you unrescued," he said, and hearing himself blushed harder.

Dwalin ate for awhile, surprisingly delicately, with his broad muzzle and great flat tongue. When he had finished, Nori refilled the tea and scrubbed the bowl with snow. "You could have," said Dwalin, as if there had been no gap. His eyes reflected the lowering flames. "I've left the King, and I am forsworn."

"Then I suppose we'll have to go back for him." Nori meant to be flip this time, but Dwalin half-rose on his bull's legs, lifting the cup between them like a sacrament. Nori came and stood before him, wrapping his own narrow fingers over Dwalin's. He met the minotaur's gaze through the steam. "We'll get him," he repeated, and it came out like a promise.

Dwalin made a low sound, an animal's groan, and fell back to the ground. The tea sloshed as Nori rescued the mug and set it aside. Dwalin reached out, one great armored hand coming to rest at Nori's hip, and Nori let himself be drawn close. Their bodies met, and Nori let a out a lick of flame. Dwalin's voice sharpened to a hiss, then a high whisper, "Yes... please, yes?" His great arms clutched Nori convulsively, and the fire-creature smiled.

"Yes," said Nori, and could not imagine saying anything else. He let his fire flicker between them for awhile, savoring each pained sound of Dwalin burning, each soothed sound of a frozen knot set free. The ground beneath them melted down to moss and Dwalin sprawled limp as a rag. Nori lay atop him, trying to look him in both eyes at once and failing. The minotaur's horns were wider across than Nori's shoulders, and his brow protruded, covered in dark curls and shining in the moonlight. "And what will you do for me, Dwalin?" he whispered, half hoping he wouldn't be heard.

"Anything," the minotaur answered. Huge hands enfolded Nori again, one gripping his arse and the other his skull while the fire-creature shivered. "But first," he added, "you are going to tell me your name."


End file.
